"I started off thinking, well, the cell
companies are screwed up because they think that they need to hose the
whole city from their high towers with their powerful transmitters, and
my little boxes will be lower-power and smarter and more realistic and
grassroots and democratic."
"Right," Alan said. "I was just thinking of that. What could be more
democratic than just encouraging people to use their own access points
and their own Internet connections to bootstrap the city?"
"Yeah," Kurt said.
"Sure, you won't get to realize your dream of getting a free Internet by
bridging down at the big cage at 151 Front Street, but we can still play
around with hardware. And convincing the people who *already* know why
WiFi is cool to join up has got to be easier than convincing shopkeepers
who've never heard of wireless to let us put antennae and boxes on their
walls."
"Right," Kurt said, getting more excited. "Right! I mean, it's just ego,
right? Why do we need to *control* the network?" He spun around on his
cracked stool and the waitress gave him a dirty look. "Gimme some apple
pie, please," he said. "This is the best part: it's going to violate the
hell out of everyone's contracts with their ISPs -- they sell you an
all-you-can-eat Internet connection and then tell you that they'll cut
off your service if you're too hungry.
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